Page 96 - JCAU-7-2

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Computational urbanism on Dashilar

merely as a site of consumption, a parody of history, and continuity of time and space within hutong neighborhoods,
a reimagining of symbolic values. neglecting the dynamic shifts and flows of life in these
Large-scale demolitions and developments, driven by areas. Furthermore, the current program layout exists in
commercial interests, often inadvertently overlook the a state of hybridity, with no clear boundaries (Zhao, 2016).
Greater hybridity in an area leads to more diverse human
activities and content. This mixed, boundary-less, and
mutable spatial organization resist large-scale, human-
driven development and necessitates nuanced control
mechanisms (Delanda, 2016). To simulate microscopic
processes of fragmentation, the cellular automata digital
model was employed, incorporating Conway’s Game of
Life algorithm. This model quantitatively observes how
individual cells grow, divide, evolve, mutate, and die under
the influence of neighborhood rules and temporal factors.
By controlling growth patterns and density, the processes
of growth, fragmentation, and variation in the Dashilar
area were substantially replicated (Figure 10).
The courtyard houses can be conceptualized as part
of a larger grid. Due to historical constraints on two-
dimensional expansion, land resources have become
increasingly scarce (Che et al., 2022). Envisioning the
future expansion of hutongs into three-dimensional
spaces – particularly within the broader Dashilar area
– raises significant questions about the emergence of
new forms under predetermined residential plot ratios.
Notably, three-dimensional cellular automata employ 26
adjacent neighbors to govern the vitality of central cells,
ensuring a more accurate representation (Shen & Ye, 2024)
(Figure 11).

Figure 9. With the increase in population, additional construction was At the urban scale, even sophisticated abstract systems
carried out inside these courtyard houses. Source: Drawing by the authors face practical challenges. Relying solely on cellular

Figure 10. Using cellular automata to simulate hutong blocks, the model progresses from discrete to regular as population and programs change,
culminating in the formation of new hutong block morphologies. Source: Drawing by the authors

Volume 7 Issue 2 (2025) 7 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.4056